Case Number 27499: Small Claims Court

Garage Sale Mystery

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All Rise...

Judge David Johnson solved a garage sale mystery. His reward was a weather-beaten Zardoz action figure.

The Charge

Criminals beware.

The Case

Lori Loughlin (Full House)
stars as Jennifer Shannon, the purveyor of antiques shop who's developed one of
the keenest bargain-hunting eyes this side of the Mekong Delta. Saturday
mornings find her journeying throughout neighborhood side streets, hitting up
every garage sale she can find, searching for that hidden treasure that would
fetch some coin in her shop or on eBay.

Turns out, her Sherlock Holmes-ian powers of observation and
detail-gathering can be used for more than just spotting bad-ass Thomas Kinkade
prints tucked between Richard Scarry books. When a string of burglaries hits the
town, Jennifer inserts herself into the investigation, offering her yard sale
expertise to help pinpoint the robbers (it makes more sense when they say it).
But the stakes get much higher when a dead body turns up and a seemingly
harmless whodunit turns into a full-blown life-and-death situation. Luckily,
Jennifer is really good at buying junk.

My dickish tone aside, I'd be lying if I said I didn't at least get a small
kick out of Garage Sale Mystery. It's a straight-up Hallmark movie, easy
to digest, innocuous and just syrupy enough to make you feel like you're not
wasting your time on some disposable pap. The murder mystery, by its nature
obviously, ups the grimness level a few degrees, but even that's as low-impact
as it gets; the perpetrator is not a huge surprise and his/her motivation is
standard-operating dastardly.

The real draw here is the lovely Lori Loughlin, who will always have a place
in my heart as the most comely squatter in Danny Tanner's Full House. As
the bargain-hunter/loving-wife/committed-mother/badass-crimefighter, she's a lot
of fun to watch and, again, I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't request Garage
Sale Mystery 2: Thrift Store Slaughter to review.